A roadie pressed a button and on went Fitter Happier.  The lights dimmed
and the crowd went nuts.  About a minute later, Colin, Phil, Ed, Jonny and
Thom came out to a huge response.  They picked up their instruments and
started in on Lucky.  The first few words came out a little strangely, but
then everything was perfect from that point on.  Lucky is a song with so
much power, and the high point is when Thom delivers "It's gonna be a
glorious day".  His voice was spot on-it was absolutely brilliant, and I
just said wow when it was over, and then I thought maybe we can all go home
because we've just been given more than we could have hoped for, a
brilliant performance of a perfect song.  Monumental.  Radiohead makes you
think that all other bands ought to give it up, just sit back and learn for
a while.  A woman I had been talking to said to me after about two songs,
"you know you're in the presence of greatness!"

They then played Planet Telex and then My Iron Lung.  I was so glad to hear
Planet Telex, as it's one of my favorites.  My Iron Lung was brilliant and
the people up front were ready for it, they swayed massively and hopped
during the insane parts.  The lights were great, they were pretty standard
for the first few minutes, then they suddenly bathed the band evenly in red
light.  Everyone was suddenly clear and the effect was stunning.  They had
strobes and other good, not annoying lighting for the rest of the show.

I'm pretty sure the next song was Paranoid Android, though my head is still
reeling. I am sure that they played every song off of OK Computer, all of
the Bends except Sulk and High and Dry, they played Thinking About You,
from P.H. and Talk Show Host.  No one seemed to miss Creep-at least I
didn't hear anyone yell for it.

Paranoid Android was very cool.  Thom told us he had "had a rough night
last night", and dedicated the song to that.  Ed picked up some kind of
pepper grinder and grooved with that thing for the first part of the song,
then quickly switched to his polite guitar for the second part of the song.
 It was something of a surprise to me that Thom plays that great guitar
that is most prominent on the song.  Cool black guitar, too.  Kicking
squealing gucci little piggy.

A few people up front had brought large zip lock plastic bags and had blown
them up when they started Airbag.  This was a song that brought out the
alarming side of Thom's stage character.  He's fantastic to watch, he IS
the song.  His body twangs with the song. He swivels his head on axis with
his upper lip against the microphone, so much so that you fear for him.  He
didn't do much raised, bent wrists all shaking wildly, in fact, only on
Bones did he do that.  What really kind of alarmed me was when he went
walking out toward the audience a little and just kind of looked at
everybody.  It was a bit alienating for a few moments and I sensed that
people didn't know how to respond to him, so they were just still and
staring at him for a moment.  Then it was time for another verse, so he had
to be back at the mike.  The last time he said, "an airbag saved my life",
was pretty twisted, too.  I loved it.  Then the third and final distorted
riff came and Jonny slammed into it with huge arm movements.  Another
mounumental song.

Thom told us about being on Jay Leno, he said, "Jay said, play something
happy, something the Friday night crowd would enjoy...Don't want to upset
the Friday night crowd"-Thom's remark- "so we played this:"  It was
Electioneering and they started, and then something was wrong, and Thom
said, "start again, start again" and they did.  Everyone loved that.  And
of course they played it perfectly this time.

Thom said before one song, " I'd just like to thank you for a lovely
evening."  It did seem as though they were enjoying themselves, not just
another gig.

For no apparent reason, I will now tell you what three of them drank:
Colin-Newcastle Brown Ale, Thom-bottled water, Ed- Odwalla Juice.  Jonny
was on his own planet the whole show.  Once, when he had nothing to do, he
just stood and stared at Ed for about a minute, just stood totally still.

I found myself saying to myself, "oh my god" after so many of the songs, it
was a bit overwhelming.  They watch each other when they need to and are
very serious about getting it all right.  I had seen them live only once
before-in 1995 at Justin Herman Plaza here in San Francisco for free.  I
didn't know they were going to play and there was just a small crowd and I
walked away a fan (with a friend who was a big fan of Pablo Honey).  But I
didn't know that they were the best live show on the planet.  I want to
follow them like the Dead now.

One encore consisted of Black Star, the Tourist and maybe another one.
Then everyone screamed and about 5 minutes later, just Thom came out to the
mike, to what can only be called an outpouring of love from absolutely
everyone.  He seemed very pleased by the reaction.  He said, "We made and
album…but we haven't played anything from it.  This is from that album."
It was Thinking About You.  He then left the stage again.  But we hadn't
had enough.  They all came out another 5 minutes later, Colin ran up to the
mike and said something, but I think it was off, and Thom sat behind a
keyboard.  Everyone was out except for Phil, and Thom said, "Phil just fell
down the stairs, he'll be with you in a moment.-I hope".  Then Phil came
out to cheers of PHIL!   Then they played Subterranean Homesick Alien.
Great.  Then that was it, Thom said, "OK, now go home!"

Many people just stayed where they were afterwards, looking at each other,
smiling and going wow.

Christian

magrippa@creative.net